5 Best Budget Gaming Laptops

The Best Gaming Laptops For Your Money?

By that, I mean the laptops that offer the best gaming performance at a given price. Because if you’re about to buy a gaming laptop, you want the one that offers the best performance possible for your budget, right?

If you have the time to do research… but who does?

You don’t have the time to read or the knowledge to understand detailed laptop reviews and specifications and just want the answers? In other words, what you want to know is:
“What’s the best gaming laptop for my budget?”

So if you don’t have the time, don’t worry. We’re here to help you with this article.

Alternatives recommendations:

We also sometime suggest alternative recommendations, with clear explanations as to why they are interesting alternatives. That way, you can easily choose the best laptop to answer YOUR needs and desires.

Put all of this together and you get this article: The Best Budget Gaming Laptops!

A reminder:

My recommendations in this article are based on the prices that I saw on November 17th 2016. Prices and availability change all the time. While I can’t keep up with ever changing prices, I do recommend to you what are in my professional experience the best laptops around a price point.

Leave a comment if you have a question, a suggestion and/or any feedback that you want to share.

Summary

Click on any of these links to jump to the section that interests you, or scroll down to see them all, in this order.

Best Gaming Laptop under $500

Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575G-52RJ

If you want a laptop that’s powerful enough for running games at 1366 x 768 low/medium settings, or older games at a rock-bottom price, this is a good deal.

Do you want to run the most demanding games, or do you want to play at an higher resolution and or with higher visual quality settings? In that case, I recommend that you get a more powerful gaming laptop. See our other recommendations below.

Single stick of 8GB of DDR4 RAM. Easy to upgrade to 16GB (2x8GB) by adding a 8GB RAM stick.

RAM can be upgraded to 32GB (2x16GB DDR4). See our recommended RAM upgrades toward the end of the article.

RAM and hard drive are easy to access, if you want to upgrade them.

High capacity 1TB hard drive

Numpad

Screen has a matte finish, doesn’t reflect light

HDMI and VGA Outputs

Windows 10

Decent keyboard for typing

Decent speakers, especially for the price

Decent build quality, with aluminum.

This is my opinion: It looks good, unlike some gaming laptops that are a bit too flashy.

720p HD webcam

1920 x 1080 1080p Full HD display

SD card reader

802.11ac WiFi

Bluetooth 4.1

Good battery life for a gaming laptop: Up to 8 hours battery life with low brightness and no WiFi. Realistically, expect 4-6 hours for web browsing, 1.5-2 hours for gaming.

Total of 4 USB ports, including one USB 3.1 Type-C, two USB 3.0 Type A (one with power-off charging) and one USB 2.0

Cons:

Trackpad doesn’t have dedicated buttons.

No Backlit keyboard.

Single stick of RAM means single-channel memory, not dual-channel. Expect a small (average 5%) performance hit compared to dual channel. Add a second stick (preferably same capacity) for optimal RAM performance.

No optical drive, but there’s room for one, so there’s also space for a drive caddy, if you want to add a SSD, you can put it in an optical drive caddy and put it in your laptop instead of an optical drive.

Keyboard layout could be better. For example, the up and down arrows are half size. The power button at the top right of the keyboard could be an annoyance for some.

Alternative

Acer E5-575G-53VG

For $20 less, you get a gaming laptop with the same CPU, the same video but a 256GB SSD instead of the 1TB hard drive, which will speeds up boot times, games launch faster and makes the system much more responsive.

What’s the catch? It’s refurbished, meaning that it was sent back to the manufacturer, fixed and now it’s being sold again. I’ve bought several refurbished products in the past without issues and have no problem recommending them.

In the end, if you don’t mind the laptop being refurbished, you still get an outstanding deal for a laptop with a decent CPU, video card and a 256GB SSD!

Good battery life for a gaming laptop: Up to 8 hours battery life with low brightness and no WiFi. Realistically, expect 4-6 hours for web browsing, 1.5-2 hours for gaming.

3 USB ports: 2x USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0

Cons:

Keyboard layout could be better. The up and down arrows are half size. The power button at the top right of the keyboard could be an annoyance for some.

Low performance 5400rpm hard drive but there is a 128GB SSD so you get fast boot times and a responsive laptop.

That said, out of that 128GB SSD, you get less than 100GB available to use. In order to keep getting optimal performance, you want to keep at least 10%, preferably 20% of that space free.

No optical drive

Single stick of RAM means single-channel memory, not dual-channel. Expect a small (average 5%) performance hit compared to dual channel. Add a second stick (preferably same capacity) for optimal RAM performance.

Average build quality, at least you get an aluminum cover for the screen.

Best Gaming Laptop for $700

Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592G-58C3

Looking for a powerful, fairly thin and lightweight gaming laptop, at a reasonable price? This is it!

You get a powerful Intel Core i5 Quad-core CPU, a great Nvidia Geforce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5 dedicated video card, 8GB of RAM, a high capacity 1TB hard drive, a high resolution 1920 x 1080 screen with an IPS panel for accurate colors, great contrast and large viewing angles, a backlit keyboard and last but not least, a 4-speaker surround sound system, in a laptop that weight 5.07lbs and is 0.9″ thick.

Video games should be playable at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with medium, high or maximum details.

It is the first time that you can get a laptop with a 6th generation Intel Core i5 quad-core, a Geforce GTX 960 4GB, an IPS 1080p screen, a backlit keyboard and more at such a low price!

Pros:

Equipped with the Nvidia Geforce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5

Intel Core i5 6300HQ 6th gen Skylake Quad-Core 2.3-3.2GHz CPU

8GB of DDR4 RAM.

RAM can be upgraded to 32GB (2x16GB DDR4). See our recommended RAM upgrades toward the end of the article.

Thin and lightweight for a gaming laptop, only 5.07lbs

1920 x 1080 1080p Full HD display

Screen with an IPS panel for more accurate colors, large viewing angles and great contrast

Best Gaming Laptop for $800

ASUS ZX53VW-AH58

The ASUS ZX53VW-AH58 moves the bar even higher when it comes to what you can get in a budget gaming laptop!

You get a powerful Intel Core i5 Quad-core CPU, a great Nvidia Geforce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5 dedicated video card, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a high resolution 1920 x 1080 matte screen with an IPS panel for accurate colors, great contrast and large viewing angles and a backlit keyboard.

Video games should be playable at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with medium, high or maximum details.

You’re getting a laptop with a 6th generation Intel Core i5 quad-core, a Geforce GTX 960 4GB, a 512GB SSD, an IPS 1080p screen, a backlit keyboard and more at this price!

No optical drive: Get an external USB optical drive if you want one. I recommend some further down in the article.

Battery life could be better: Up to 6 hours battery life with low brightness and no WiFi. Realistically, expect 2-4 hours for web browsing, 1-2 hours for gaming.

Not exactly lightweight: 15.1 x 0.8 x 10″, 5.5 pounds

Upgrade your Laptop:

Upgrade your RAM:

RAM can easily be upgraded on most laptops. Do note that some laptops cannot be upgraded at all, due to their unique design. A quick google search should provide that info. Feel free to ask me in the comment section if you aren’t sure and can’t find the info.

Some laptops accept hard drives with a 7mm height, others with a 9.5mm height.

Upgrade to a SSD or upgrade your current SSD to get higher capacity and/or higher performance!

A SSD (Solid State Drive) is far faster than a hard drive (See our SSD FAQ) and it also consumes less power than a hard drive, so replacing a hard drive by a SSD will slightly boost your laptop’s battery life.

This particular enclosure comes with a retractable cable that is connected to the enclosure, so you don’t lose/forget it and it makes the whole package more compact too. It comes with an extension cord if you need it.

Looking for a different external case or need a specific cable? Leave a comment if you need assistance with finding what’s best for your needs.

USB DVD and Blu-Ray Drives

If your laptop doesn’t come with an optical drive and you want one, here are my recommendations for external USB optical drives.

About The Author

HR Founder - Computer expert with over 16 years of experience in building, fixing and modifying PCs.
Over the years, I’ve developed a passion for PC hardware and now I enjoy helping others build their own PCs!
In April 2008, I launched Hardware Revolution and ... Read more at my about page

Did you enjoy this article? Support us by making a donation!

You can support Hardware Revolution by making a donation, by clicking here or using the button.

This website is my job, I must pay for staff and hosting, as well as cover my living costs.

How much should you donate? Think about how much money and time that I've helped you save. Offer me a coffee, a beer, a meal, an evening out, etc. Donate what you can. Anything is appreciated.